Mu-43 Top Veteran

That is what I thought, especially given the extra $200 discount on a trade-in, so it works out to $365. Maybe I could have sold it for $225 +/- outright. What I am including is all the accessories (cables, charger, flash, box and manual) that it came with, the camera has 7,400 clicks but is in really great shape as I had a screen cover and extended grip on it since day 1.

Mu-43 Top Veteran

Good to know. I read the same about ND filter from: https://mirrorlesscomparison.com/preview/olympus-omd-em1-ii-vs-em1-iii/
"First, the maximum shutter speed is 1/30s with the ND2 setting and half a second with ND32. You need to be in an environment where there isn’t too much light. It will work fine in a forest, but you’ll be more limited in broad daylight. The maximum ISO available is 800. "

Too bad on OIS Panasonic lenses... That is mostly what I have except couple Oly primes...

The live ND and hand held stabilization are the reasons I am interested... I have also older Oly cameras, need to find the boxes to trade...

1. The built in ND filter. This only works for really slow shutter speeds, like 1/4 sec or slower. If was designed to work with moving water, not portraits. I shoot portraits wide open in bright sun and use ND filters to bring down the the ss to match the fastest flash sync speed, usually 1/250ss, but this will not work with the built in ND. At ND32, or 5 stops, the fastest speed the camera would allow was 2 seconds.

2. Starry AF. The rep said this will work with Live Composite and when I asked about hand held high res she said sure, why wouldn’t it?

3. Olympus still fails to recognize Panasonic lenses with OIS and on-lens aperture rings set to a specific setting, to register with their cameras. When I asked why the 2 “partners” in M4/3 are still doing this, given other camera partnerships that allow for such items to work, and she said it was most likely due to proprietary designs. I mentioned that with my Sony A73, my Voigtlander MF lenses not only provide EXIF data to the camera, but the aperture ring changes register in camera too and the OIS on my Zeiss lenses works in conjunction with the Sony body. This is how Olympus and Panasonic need to cooperate it they intend to succeed.

Overall I liked what I saw and will be placing an order for the new body, selling off my G9 and EM1. The rep confirmed that the customer must provide a working camera body, any manufacturer, to the dealer in order for the $200 trade in discount to work.

Mu-43 Hall of Famer

I guess I had no serious reason to consider updating my E-M1 mark I before this announcement, and I still have no reason to. The lack of sensor improvement since 2016 (and really since 2012) is quite disappointing. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some meaningful change over that period...

Mu-43 All-Pro

I really think people should read Petr Bambousek's articles about using the E-M1 III in Costa Rica , between part 1 and part 2 he did a pretty good job of explaining the real-life, practical differences between II and III. Sure its the same sensor etc but they made a number of usability improvements and refinements to 1.3 that make it a significant QoL upgrade to those that really use their cameras.

I'm noticing that this happens a lot with Olympus, on paper their stuff doesn't seem all that impressive but in practical every day usage the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
When the E-M1X came out soo many people said it was a waste (myself included) and why would someone want that? But when its target audience got it they sang its praises.
When the 12-100 came out, everyone poo pooed it , too big, "only" f4 , too expensive etc. But most people who did changed their minds once they actually used it.They loved its sharpness, versatility and practical usage.

​

Heck , someone asked Peter what he uses his 12-100 for in the comments and his reply was :

​

"12-100mm/4 IS allows me to shoot more extreme shutter times (up to 8-10″ at wide end) handheld. I use it for night animal photography, then for mostly day landscapes with running water, as all around lens and “almost wide-angle almost-macro”, as it allows very close AF distance on 12mm. "​

Night photography with a f4 lens?? That almost sounds nonsensical, and you can't see that use case from the paper specs alone, but again, its the whole package and how it works with the camera to give that result.

A friend of mine is looking to buy a smaller system than her Canon 5D IV for travel purposes and I was telling her why she should get the Olympus over my G9 despite the fact that they "share" a number of the same features.

They both have HighRes and, esp since the update, mode 2 is definitely more usable now on the G9, but its not at the ease of use of HandHeld HiRes that the EM1.3 and EM1X have yet.

The G9 has something similar to Pro Capture but for RAW output it only saves about half a second before full shutter press. To get a full second u'd need to use 6K Photo to get 18MP jpegs. On the Olympus the buffer is larger so u get a full second in RAW.

With the in-camera focus stacking for macro .. yeah Panasonic has it, and it works with any lens , but it doesn't deal with focus breathing well so the results tend to be full of artifacts. Oly limits the feature to specific lenses. I theorize it's so they can take the focus breathing characteristics of the lens into account and from there they get better results so its actually usable.

We all know they've now refined AF with their last patch to give smoother focus transitions and lock on capability than the G9 now; so much so that even Vloggers are saying its a great vlogging camera now.

They've increased live bulb limits whereas the G9 has a maximum of 60 secs I believe?

Look how practically useful Live Composite is.

They both have joysticks but G9's 4-way the EM 1.3 is 8 way

Sure they're both somewhat weather resistant but Panasonic's manual makes sure to put up disclaimers. The E-M1 III is now IPX1 certified.

The body packs in so much and yet its same size as the relatively diminutive G85.

What truly sold her was the sheer usefulness of the E-M1 III / 12-100 combo. As far as I know , no other system has an answer to that combo, not even Panasonic. We looked at image samples, including the shootout on the front page compared to my fav'd 14-140mm, , she was amazed how sharp it was. The stuff people were able to do with that combo, handheld, thus reducing the need for her to carry a tripod etc.

She was already impressed by my G9's IBIS and that Oly is a step further. She lived by her 24-70 and 70-200 on her 5D IV and the fact she could get that entire range in 1 high quality lens to reduce swapping and its lighter than her T3 with the 24-70 she was using before and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more versatile. She's a digital artist, so she uses her photographs as the basis of her art that she creates in photoshop etc. So all these features are of real use to her, because she doesn't just take simple pictures.

This is a bit of a long rant, and to be sure I am NOT bashing Panasonic or my G9, I love 'em both, I'm just saying Olympus tends to polish their practical features and functionality through iterations a bit more. They're also more focused on practical photo features whereas Panasonic is focused on practical video features even up to now.

But Olympus really deserves a lot more credit than we give it. Do yourself a favor and look beyond the paper specs and go for the whole experience.

One of the "Eh?" team

I really think people should read Petr Bambousek's articles about using the E-M1 III in Costa Rica , between part 1 and part 2 he did a pretty good job of explaining the real-life, practical differences between II and III. Sure its the same sensor etc but they made a number of usability improvements and refinements to 1.3 that make it a significant upgrade to those that really use their cameras.

I'm noticing that this happens a lot with Olympus, on paper their stuff doesn't seem all that impressive but in practical every day usage the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
When the E-M1X came out soo many people said it was a waste (myself included) and why would someone want that? But when its target audience got it they sang its praises.
When the 12-100 came out, everyone poo pooed it , too big, "only" f4 , too expensive etc. But most people who did changed their minds once they actually used it.They loved its sharpness, versatility and practical usage.

​

Heck , someone asked Peter what he uses his 12-100 for in the comments and his reply was :

​

"12-100mm/4 IS allows me to shoot more extreme shutter times (up to 8-10″ at wide end) handheld. I use it for night animal photography, then for mostly day landscapes with running water, as all around lens and “almost wide-angle almost-macro”, as it allows very close AF distance on 12mm. "​

Night photography with a f4 lens?? That almost sounds nonsensical, and you can't see that use case from the paper specs alone, but again, its the whole package and how it works with the camera to give that result.

A friend of mine is looking to buy a smaller system than her Canon 5D IV for travel purposes and I was telling her why she should get the Olympus over my G9 despite the fact that they "share" a number of the same features.

They both have HighRes and esp since the update mode 2 is definitely more usable now on the G9 but its not at ease of use of HandHeld HiRes the EM1.3 and EM1X has yet

The G9 has something similar to Pro Capture but for RAW output it only saves about half a second before full shutter press. To get a full second u'd need to use 6K Photo to get 18MP jpegs. On the Olympus the buffer is larger so u get a full second in RAW.

With the in-camera focus stacking for macro .. yeah Panasonic has it, and it works with any lens , but it doesn't deal with focus breathing well so the results tend to be full of artifacts. Oly limits the feature to specific lenses, I theorise its so they can take the focus breathing characteristics of the lens into account and from there they get better results so its actually usable.

We all know they've now refined AF with their last patch to give smoother focus transitions and lock on capability than the G9 now so much so that even Vloggers are saying its a great vlogging camera now.

They've increased live bulb limits whereas the G9 has a maximum of 60 secs I believe?

Look how practically useful Live Composite is.

They both have joysticks but G9's 4-way the EM 1.3 is 8 way

Sure they're both somewhat weather resistant but Panasonic's manual makes sure to put up disclaimers. The E-M1 III is now IPX1 certified.

The body packs in so much and yet its same size as the relatively diminutive G85.

What truly sold her was the sheer usefulness of the E-M1 III / 12-100 combo. As far as I know , no other system has an answer to that combo, not even Panasonic. We looked at image samples, including the shootout on the front page compared to my fav'd 14-140mm, , she was amazed how sharp it was. The stuff people were able to do with that combo, handheld, thus reducing the need for her to carry a tripod etc.View attachment 804698
She was already impressed by my G9's IBIS and that Oly is a step further. She lived by her 24-70 and 70-200 on her 5D IV and the fact she could get that entire range in 1 high quality lens to reduce swapping and its lighter than her T3 with the 24-70 she was used before and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more versatile. She's a digital artist, so she uses her photographs as the basis of her that she creates in photoshop etc. So all these features are of real use to her, because she doesn't just take simple pictures.

This is a bit of long rant, and to be sure I am NOT bashing Panasonic or my G9, I love 'em both, I'm just saying Olympus tends to polish their practical features and functionality through iterations a bit more. They're also more focused on practical photo features whereas Panasonic is focused on practical video features even up to now.

But Olympus really deserves a lot more credit than we give it. Do yourself a favor and look beyond the paper specs and go for the whole experience.

That's a great post and it sums up very well why m43, and Oly gear in particular, delivers in the real world - even though the days of gushing reviews are over (i.e. when the E-M5 was launched).

Like @dhazeghi above, I'm disappointed that we've seen such little sensor progress for the last eight years, but OTOH, it's very rare for me to be disappointed with a photo because of sensor limitations. It happens, but it's not often enough for me to even think of the cost, size, weight penalties that I'd have to endure to go to an FF system and its step up in sensor IQ.

Then I look at the things unique to Olympus/m43 that actually help me get shots I wouldn't get otherwise and then I know that I'm actually very comfortable where I am. I'm talking of things like:

- Amazing stabilisation. The E-M1ii and 12-100 is insanely good. Like Petr Bambousek, I find I can do handheld shots at the wide end down to 8s or so. What that does for ad-hoc long exposures when out walking is amazing.

- LiveComp and LiveTime. I use these a lot. They give amazing creativity options for landscapes and cityscapes. LiveComp isn't just for star trails and LiveTime with some exposure-time dodging can do amazing things to control DR - way beyond what you'd get even with a medium format camera like the Hassie or the Fuji GX50.

- Focus stacking.

- Exposure bracketing with the 60fps electronic shutter.

- An amazing range of uber high quality glass that won't break your back carrying it or your wallet buying it.

- An amazing range of compatible bodies from the small to the somewhat bigger. DSLR-style, or compact-style. From cheap to expensive.

I think for landscape, cityscape, travel, and action the system can definitely keep up with others - incl FF. I accept that if you want to push landscape to the limit with heavily pushed shadows, and go pixel peeking - then a Nikon Z7, Sony A7Riii or similar would perhaps work better. But throw in the IBIS, lighter weight, and lens options, and think for a moment about your output needs, and the apparent advantages of FF fade away.

About the only place where FF obviously wins for me is for portraiture in non-studio settings. If you want to blow backgrounds at reasonable focal lengths (35-50 equiv), then m43 is't going to cut it. The Pro primes try to stay in the race, but at pushing a grand for the 25/1.2 when you could get a Nikon Z 50mm f1.8 for less than half that price and which will give you shallower DOF, it's a hard pitch to make.

Mu-43 All-Pro

I really think people should read Petr Bambousek's articles about using the E-M1 III in Costa Rica , between part 1 and part 2 he did a pretty good job of explaining the real-life, practical differences between II and III. Sure its the same sensor etc but they made a number of usability improvements and refinements to 1.3 that make it a significant upgrade to those that really use their cameras.

I'm noticing that this happens a lot with Olympus, on paper their stuff doesn't seem all that impressive but in practical every day usage the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
When the E-M1X came out soo many people said it was a waste (myself included) and why would someone want that? But when its target audience got it they sang its praises.
When the 12-100 came out, everyone poo pooed it , too big, "only" f4 , too expensive etc. But most people who did changed their minds once they actually used it.They loved its sharpness, versatility and practical usage.

​

Heck , someone asked Peter what he uses his 12-100 for in the comments and his reply was :

​

"12-100mm/4 IS allows me to shoot more extreme shutter times (up to 8-10″ at wide end) handheld. I use it for night animal photography, then for mostly day landscapes with running water, as all around lens and “almost wide-angle almost-macro”, as it allows very close AF distance on 12mm. "​

Night photography with a f4 lens?? That almost sounds nonsensical, and you can't see that use case from the paper specs alone, but again, its the whole package and how it works with the camera to give that result.

A friend of mine is looking to buy a smaller system than her Canon 5D IV for travel purposes and I was telling her why she should get the Olympus over my G9 despite the fact that they "share" a number of the same features.

They both have HighRes and esp since the update mode 2 is definitely more usable now on the G9 but its not at ease of use of HandHeld HiRes the EM1.3 and EM1X has yet

The G9 has something similar to Pro Capture but for RAW output it only saves about half a second before full shutter press. To get a full second u'd need to use 6K Photo to get 18MP jpegs. On the Olympus the buffer is larger so u get a full second in RAW.

With the in-camera focus stacking for macro .. yeah Panasonic has it, and it works with any lens , but it doesn't deal with focus breathing well so the results tend to be full of artifacts. Oly limits the feature to specific lenses, I theorise its so they can take the focus breathing characteristics of the lens into account and from there they get better results so its actually usable.

We all know they've now refined AF with their last patch to give smoother focus transitions and lock on capability than the G9 now so much so that even Vloggers are saying its a great vlogging camera now.

They've increased live bulb limits whereas the G9 has a maximum of 60 secs I believe?

Look how practically useful Live Composite is.

They both have joysticks but G9's 4-way the EM 1.3 is 8 way

Sure they're both somewhat weather resistant but Panasonic's manual makes sure to put up disclaimers. The E-M1 III is now IPX1 certified.

The body packs in so much and yet its same size as the relatively diminutive G85.

What truly sold her was the sheer usefulness of the E-M1 III / 12-100 combo. As far as I know , no other system has an answer to that combo, not even Panasonic. We looked at image samples, including the shootout on the front page compared to my fav'd 14-140mm, , she was amazed how sharp it was. The stuff people were able to do with that combo, handheld, thus reducing the need for her to carry a tripod etc.View attachment 804698
She was already impressed by my G9's IBIS and that Oly is a step further. She lived by her 24-70 and 70-200 on her 5D IV and the fact she could get that entire range in 1 high quality lens to reduce swapping and its lighter than her T3 with the 24-70 she was used before and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more versatile. She's a digital artist, so she uses her photographs as the basis of her that she creates in photoshop etc. So all these features are of real use to her, because she doesn't just take simple pictures.

This is a bit of long rant, and to be sure I am NOT bashing Panasonic or my G9, I love 'em both, I'm just saying Olympus tends to polish their practical features and functionality through iterations a bit more. They're also more focused on practical photo features whereas Panasonic is focused on practical video features even up to now.

But Olympus really deserves a lot more credit than we give it. Do yourself a favor and look beyond the paper specs and go for the whole experience.

Mu-43 Top Veteran

I had my first outing with the E-M1 III this afternoon and a couple of brief observations.

First, compared to my E-M1 II, I could discern that the Mark III has a much faster processor, every thing was just quicker

I was shooting some BiF’s and still birds at a local State Wildlife Park with my PL 100-400 attached. I set up with my usual 1/2500 sec shutter speed, auto ISO, let the aperture float to the widest for any focal length C-AF + MF, silent low sequential 18 FPS. Small single focus point.

Focus lock was fast and solid and seemed to stick better than my EM1.2. Keeper rate was similar or better. Then the surprise... I decided to try the 5x5 focus box and bingo, as long ad I got that first focus confirmation and kept the bird within the 25 focus point box, every image was in focus, or actually several birds if they were in tight proximity and inside the box. I think with some experimentation with the sensitivity settings, I had it on +2, I might even get it to be a bit better.

I went on a short hike and switched to the 12-100 f/4 and tried a couple of HHHR shots......and had a learning experience. Of course a flower that dances even slightly in any breeze is a deal breaker. But, the knot in an old tree was much better, if boring, but at least it is pretty easy to do and the Sync IS between the 12-100 and the Mark III makes it all doable. In camera processing was about 15 seconds per shot. Shooting Raw + JPEG gave me the HI Rez JPEG and the Hi Rez Raw, plus a normal Raw. The image sizes were 8160x6120 px with the raw file being about 38mb and the JPEG about 22mb.

One final observation..... the benefits of the inclusion of a joy stick on this model cannot be overstated, IMO. Not only is it a godsend for selecting the focus point (and the focusing grid), but it moves you around the image when zoomed in on image playback. Want to spin through the thumbnails in a hurry? Punch and hold left or right and get an old time movie as the images flash by. And, it is great for menu navigation, just toggle around through the options and punch in to set. Not sure what else to use it for but I’m thinking I might be able to get it to brew coffee with some more experimentation.

Mu-43 All-Pro

One final observation..... the benefits of the inclusion of a joy stick on this model cannot be overstated, IMO. Not only is it a godsend for selecting the focus point (and the focusing grid), but it moves you around the image when zoomed in on image playback. Want to spin through the thumbnails in a hurry? Punch and hold left or right and get an old time movie as the images flash by. And, it is great for menu navigation, just toggle around through the options and punch in to set. Not sure what else to use it for but I’m thinking I might be able to get it to brew coffee with some more experimentation.

Yeah Petr mentioned it in his blog , I found this very interesting: (emphasis his)

"You can now straighten up your crooked back and have a minute to browse through your photos. You enlarge them 1:1 with one turn of the knob and go through the series. With a touch of one button you lock those that are perfectly sharp, leaving the other photos to be. Then, you name the entire series that you just took and bulk delete the unprotected ones leaving you with 15 locked, super sharp shots not wasting any space on the card. "​

​

The ability to name a series would certainly come in handy for some of my bursts.

Although the body is about the same size as the Mark II, the slightly deeper grip and the way the joy stick is used in so many different functions, makes the Mark III seem like an entirely different camera, at least to me.

Mu-43 Top Veteran

After a couple of outings with the E-M1 III, I'm beginning to suspect that using the E-M1 II settings (my starting point) with the E-M1 III , might be not much better than when I see folks trying to set up their E-M1 II using their old Canon settings. Perhaps using the settings from the E-M1 X as an initial guide might be more appropriate.

However, if we add into the mix that, the new TruePic IX processor may be different than the E-M1 X TruePic VIII processor, we maybe move even further away from the best performance settings of either.

With all that said, I would like to hear from someone who has now both the E-M1 X and the E-M1 III that might be able to compare and contrast the settings in real world shooting.

Mu-43 All-Pro

Mine arrived this afternoon. My first surprise was that the supplied battery was completely dead - that's never happened to me before with any camera. The camera wouldn't even turn on. Fortunately, I have several batteries from the M1.2, so I started the customization process.

Mu-43 Hall of Famer

Mine arrived this afternoon. My first surprise was that the supplied battery was completely dead - that's never happened to me before with any camera. The camera wouldn't even turn on. Fortunately, I have several batteries from the M1.2, so I started the customization process.

Happened with a new Canon 90D at school.
One of the kids just HAD TO to play with it; so he opened the box, put the battery in the camera and . . . nothing.

There "might" be a shipping issue with a fully charged Lithium battery. I don't know the shipping rules.
When a manufacturer ships, there are hundreds of cameras and batteries in the container. So their risk is greater.

Mu-43 Hall of Famer

Mine arrived this afternoon. My first surprise was that the supplied battery was completely dead - that's never happened to me before with any camera. The camera wouldn't even turn on. Fortunately, I have several batteries from the M1.2, so I started the customization process.

Mu-43 All-Pro

1. You can save the settings to your computer, as before. But now you can save (and load) the Settings from your phone or tablet. And, just like on the computer, you can name them. That means that you can have a potentially unlimited number of setups for your camera, all carried in your pocket. For instance, I might have an Event set (C1 = basic handheld, C2 = Portraits on Tripod with Flash, C3 = Portraits Handheld with Flash, etc.) and a Landscape Set (C1 = basic handheld, C2 = tripod, ISO 200, F5.6; C3 = tripod, HiRes Tripod, ISO 200, etc.).

2. Although the terminology is wonky, you can have the saved Custom settings fixed and always loaded the same way when you choose C1 etc. on the mode dial (as before), or you can have them automatically saved back whenever you change them. The latter is really excellent for working out how you want a Custom setting to work. You can set this for each Cx separately, so you can work on one at a time without messing up the others, or continually going into the Menu to save after you make a change.

The big gap in functionality (for me) is a phone and/or PC based editor to make the settings. I use a lot of music-related gear which offers this; it's really a lot easier editing on a large screen. And if it was a really good editor, it could be very intelligent and give you helpful help about settings which are interrelated.

Mu-43 Regular

1. You can save the settings to your computer, as before. But now you can save (and load) the Settings from your phone or tablet. And, just like on the computer, you can name them. That means that you can have a potentially unlimited number of setups for your camera, all carried in your pocket. For instance, I might have an Event set (C1 = basic handheld, C2 = Portraits on Tripod with Flash, C3 = Portraits Handheld with Flash, etc.) and a Landscape Set (C1 = basic handheld, C2 = tripod, ISO 200, F5.6; C3 = tripod, HiRes Tripod, ISO 200, etc.).